i'm the one who cares
by queendementor
Summary: sometimes the best gifts aren't physical.


**i'm the one who cares**

_a/n: for credence - happiest of happy birthdays!_

_a/n2: also, thank you to credence and chastity for inspiring this piece of madness._

When Jeanne Marie Barebone came to visit her grandchildren, she nearly always brought a gift. She might come bearing something to play with, or in the summer she would bring lemon ice.

But this visit was a little different. It wasn't until she arrived that she realized she had left her offerings at home.

Credence, Chastity, and Modesty didn't seem to care, telling her that her visit alone was all they needed. Still, this failed to convince Jeanne as she looked down upon them. What could she do to provide a distraction from their world of leaves and peas?

Jeanne's eyes fell upon a pile of leaflets, slightly crumpled and forgotten underneath Ivan the leaf machine. "Are those old?" she asked the children.

"Yes," Modesty told her. "But those are for Ivan, Grandma. In case he has to, you know, go."

Her grandmother gave the scene a disapproving look. Mary Lou's leaf obsession was only growing more and more ridiculous.

"I hardly think he'll miss a few," Jeanne said, removing a few leaflets (which caused Ivan to toss a leaf at her.) "He has enough already."

"What are we doing with those, Grandma?" Chastity wondered aloud.

"You'll see."

-x-

All was calm as Jeanne led her grandchildren to the table and set a leaflet in front of each of them. With Mary Lou preoccupied with her peas in the next room, it seemed unlikely she would bother them.

Once she had their full attention, Jeanne took her leaflet and meticulously folded it, the children awed as they watched it transform from a simple leaflet to something resembling a bird. "How do you do that?" Modesty asked, astonished.

"Would you like me to teach you?" Jeanne proposed.

Modesty nodded.

Jeanne led her granddaughter in the process of folding a leaflet to look like a bird. But though Modesty followed her instructions almost perfectly, she ended up with something that looked a bit more like a flower.

"That's perfectly all right," Jeanne said when she saw Modesty's expression. "Your flower looks very nice, dear."

She moved onto Chastity, whose bird looked a little flat, and then to Credence, who was convinced his resembled an old potato. But this didn't stop them from enjoying the activity, and they even asked for more leaflets to do it again.

Once the folded leaflets were finished, Jeanne set them on the table, on display for all who wanted to see them. "I think they came out nicely," she observed. "No old potatoes to be seen."

But just as she released the final leaflet, they heard a thud from the other room. "You wait here, children," Jeanne said. "I'll see what's the matter."

-x-

Leaving the children alone for what she thought would be just a minute, Jeanne went to see what had fallen. She didn't know precisely what she expected, but she knew it wasn't the sight that greeted her.

An empty bottle of pea moonshine lay on its side in the corner of the room. The rocking chair was overturned, pinning her daughter to the floor.

No, that wasn't quite right. Mary Lou had managed to twist herself into a pretzel and entangle herself in the rocking chair. Jeanne hadn't even known that was possible.

"Mary Lou, what is the meaning of this?" Jeanne demanded.

"I wanted to be a Finnish pretzel," Mary Lou told her, words slurred. She truly didn't seem to understand how ridiculous she sounded.

"What?" Jeanne was thoroughly confused. "What does Finland have to do with anything? I asked you what you are doing under that chair, young lady."

"Finland?" It appeared Mary Lou had forgotten she'd brought up that subject. "Finland has leaves..."

Perhaps going along with it would help, at least for now. "Yes, dear, Finland has leaves. And you also have leaves," Jeanne gestured to the leaves littering the room.

"But I want them to be in _Finland!" _Mary Lou insisted. "Finland...and pretzels. Leaves like pretzels."

Clearly she was too drunk to have a coherent conversation, let alone try to reason with. Maybe Jeanne could convince her daughter to go to bed...

Though she would have to remove her from the rocking chair first.

"Grandma?" Credence's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, Credence," she said. "But I'll need you to get your sisters. I'm afraid your mother has been drinking again."

-x-

Unsticking Mary Lou from the chair was not the difficult part. The second part of Jeanne's plan, however, was not so easy.

As soon as Chastity replaced the chair, Mary Lou found a second bottle of moonshine under the couch and drank half before Jeanne said, "Absolutely not," and took it away.

By now she was too inebriated to stand properly, and Credence was overwhelmed by the smell of peas and alcohol as he held her up to prevent her from falling.

Jeanne took her daughter from Credence. Almost immediately Mary Lou was pressed against her and mumbling something about a retirement home.

"I think I'll put _you_ in the retirement home if you don't stop drinking!" her mother told her.

"No, the peas..." Mary Lou held up a pea as if her mother didn't know what peas were. "The old peas, they need me..."

"And just what do you propose we do about that?"

From what Jeanne actually understood of the conversation, Mary Lou wanted to open a retirement home for peas, because no one cared about elderly peas except for her. Everyone threw their peas away when they grew moldy, but moldy peas needed to be loved and cared for just like regular peas.

"She already has a retirement home for peas," Modesty said. "All the old ones live in a closet."

Jeanne considered this for a moment. "Show me that closet," she decided.

With the help of her two elder grandchildren, Jeanne managed to haul her daughter to the closet where she kept her elderly peas. This was where she deposited Mary Lou, tossing a blanket over her and shutting the door.

"Does that happen often?" Jeanne asked the children, her tone exasperated. "It seems like every other time I come over she gets drunk."

"Not so often," Credence said. "Only about...once a week."

No wonder the children called so frequently.

-x-

Once that was taken care of, Jeanne consulted the clock and discovered it was nearly dinnertime. "I think we ought to have something to eat, don't you?"

"I'll take care of it, Grandma," Chastity said. She took out a bag of frozen peas and set a pot on the stove.

"No, no, Chastity," Jeanne took the peas away. "You've had quite enough of those. I think it's high time you have a proper meal."

She couldn't help but notice the looks of pure delight and relief on their faces as she put the peas back in the icebox. To them, it was a rare treat to be able to consume a meal without peas.

The home lives of Jeanne's grandchildren would never be perfect, or even truly ideal. But it comforted her to know that she could do something to make things better, to make just a bit of a difference in their lives.

_-end-_


End file.
